


After School Special Bonus— Maram, Jamal and Baby

by octoaliencowboy



Series: Dicktiger After School Special [3]
Category: DCU, Grayson (Comics)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Grayson #5, Idk what kind of fic this is, fill in the blanks type of fic, fuck Tom king lives but like Grayson #5 hits me right in the fucking feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-08-26 03:31:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16673872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/octoaliencowboy/pseuds/octoaliencowboy
Summary: What happened in Grayson #5 between Dick being found in the desert with the baby by that couple in the truck and him going back to spyral, sans baby? Well, this is basically it. Enjoy uwu





	After School Special Bonus— Maram, Jamal and Baby

**Author's Note:**

> Any dialogue written inside < these bad boys > means it’s in a language other than English

Dick groaned uncomfortably as he came to. Something felt… wrong. Off. He was-- last he remembered, he was in the desert, forcing himself with all his might to take one more step, always just one more step. He remembered, stumbling, falling onto the rough sand… this did not feel like sand. He was laying down on some soft surface. The air was cool, as opposed to the stifling dry heat of the desert. There was a very distinct, squirming weight missing from his chest.

 

Dick’s eyes snapped open suddenly, blinking against the bright light. The baby! Where was the baby?! He sat up quickly, groaning again as the room spun and his head throbbed. His throat was dry and sore. He clutched his head, willing the pounding headache to go away. He had to find the baby, had to make sure she was okay…

 

There was a hand on his shoulder, a voice in his ear telling him to relax. Dick was tired and sore all over, and when the hands coaxed him back down to lean against the pillows (Pillows-- bed, he was laying on a bed) he went without protest. He opened his eyes again, slower this time, and saw a man hovering over him. The man looked to be a good few years older than him, wearing a white keffiyeh and thobe. He was saying something, in-- arabic? Yes, the man was saying something to him in arabic. Dick’s arabic was a little rusty, because the only person he’d spoken to regularly in the language was… gone… but he’d always been good at languages so he understood fine. Once the pounding in his head lessened enough for him to make out any noise, that is.

 

<You’re very dehydrated, Sir,> The man was saying to him. <Here, have some water. Slowly, drink slowly.>

 

The man tried to hand Dick a glass of water that had been sitting on a bedside table, but Dick pushed the glass away.

 

<Baby…> Dick rasped. God, his throat felt like sandpaper. How long had he been out? <Where… the baby…>

 

A cry sounded out from a room over, a cry that Dick had become very familiar with over the last ten days. He jerked upwards, instincts calling him towards the sound. The man pushed him back down as he called over his shoulder to someone in the other room.

 

<Maram, the man is awake! Bring the baby!>

 

In came a woman, dressed in a simple black abaya and matching hijab, carrying the fussing baby in her arms. Dick felt all the tension bleed out of him upon seeing the little infant safe and unharmed. He reached out and the woman passed him the baby, who calmed almost immediately in his arms.

 

<She has been crying for you for hours.> The woman said.

 

Dick smiled down at the baby cooing happily in his arms. She smacked his chest delightedly with her tiny baby hands. Dick winced lightly-- he must have been pretty weak from hiking through the desert with no food and minimal water, because damn, that hurt.

 

<Who are you?> Dick asked the couple watching him curiously.

 

The man smiled at him. <My name is Jamal, and this is my wife, Maram. We found you passed out in the sand a few miles out of town.> Jamal said. <What is your name, and where did you come from?>

 

Dick grimaced. <My name is Richard. And it’s a long story. Her mother gave birth on a plane and it crashed. She… didn’t make it. I carried the baby across the desert for ten days.> He left out the part about Midnighter threatening to fight him over the baby, or Helena collapsing in the sand, or the fact that he was a spy. <I couldn’t let her die out there.>

 

<Are you the baby’s father?> Asked Jamal. Dick shook his head, but regretted it when the movement caused his headache to flare back up. Maram passed him the glass of water from the bedside table, and this time he accepted it. He shifted the baby to one arm and brought the glass to his dry lips. Dick had to force himself to drink it slowly, no matter how amazing it felt to finally have a drink of water after so long.

 

<What kind of man carries a baby across the desert for ten days that isn’t even his?> Jamal said. His wife shot him a disapproving look.

 

<A _good_ one.> Maram turned her attention to the baby, who was now poking at the scruff that had grown on Dick’s face. The way she looked at the infant, like her heart melted every time she laid eyes on her, Dick could tell she was enamoured with this baby. Dick could relate. <Does she have a name?>

 

Dick blinked. The baby did not, in fact, have a name. He’d just spent the last ten days referring to her as ‘baby’.

 

<No.>

 

Well, that wasn’t _completely_ true. Dick had thought about giving the baby a name, even if he hadn’t thought of one. But he didn’t feel like he really had the right to name the child. It wasn’t his child. And if he named it he would just get too attached, and he couldn’t adopt a baby right now. He was nowhere near a position where he could adopt a baby. As nice as it would be.

 

Maram’s eyes shined, and Dick already knew what was coming. It seemed like Jamal did too, and he looked as joyous as he did resigned.

 

<I think Hafsa would be a nice name for her.> Said Maram. <She’s got quite a pair of lungs, this little one does.>

 

Hafsa. Maram was right, it was a nice name. Dick looked back down at the baby. She looked like she could be a Hafsa. Dick smiled.

 

<Then Hafsa is her name.> He said. <You know, I can’t keep this baby. She is in need of a home.>

 

Maram and Jamal looked at each other, then back at Dick.

 

<This could be her home.> Jamal said. <We have always wanted a child, but… we were never able to conceive. The baby… Hafsa could be happy here.>

 

Dick considered it. He didn’t really know these people, but then again, if it weren’t for them he probably would have died out in that desert. And so would the baby. They hadn’t done any harm to him or Hafsa while he was unconscious. They seemed like very _regular_ people, no secret motive or hidden agenda in sight. They seemed very hopeful over the prospect of adopting this baby. And there was no way Hafsa could go back to spyral with him. Midnighter had been right, as much as he hated to admit it-- Spyral did not value the life of an infant more than they valued the Paragon Heart.

 

Hafsa would be happy here. It was the right thing to do.

 

<Then consider her yours.>

  


Dick spent the rest of the day with Maram and Jamal, making sure Hafsa would be accustomed to being held by them both before Dick left. She’d spent the first ten days of her life only in his arms-- he was the only thing that she was used to. It wouldn’t be fair to the newborn to leave her so suddenly, seemingly stranded with two strangers. Hours later, when the sun was starting to set again, it was time for Dick to go. He’d been fed, and hydrated, and now he had to find somewhere far away enough from Maram and Jamal’s home for Spyral to pick him up.

 

Hafsa has been put to bed, in an empty crib Maram and Jamal has always kept just in case. The infant was fast asleep, comfy in a blue t-shirt and puffy white diaper. She was snuggled up with a little giraffe webkinz and lavender blanket. Dick was kneeling over the crib, misty eyed and getting ready to say goodbye.

 

He stared at Hafsa’s sleeping face, resisting the urge to hold her one last time. He couldn’t risk waking her up.

 

“Bye, Hafsa.” Dick whispered. “I have to go now. We’ll probably never see each other again, but you remember not to worry about the rocks, okay? You don’t have to worry about the rocks.” Damn, he was getting choked up. He couldn’t linger any more. He had to leave. “Bye, now.”

 

<You’ll never visit?> Jamal asked him when he was at the door. Dick shook his head.

 

<I can’t,> he said.

 

<We'll take good care of her.> Maram said. Dick smiled.

 

<I’m sure you will.>

 

He walked out of the house into the dusk. It felt like a hole opened up in his heart as soon as the door closed behind him. Dick looked around. Maram and Jamal seemed to live on the very outskirts of Najran, where the houses were fewer and further between than in the thick of the city. Perfect. His Hypnos was still fried, so the less people who saw him the better.

 

Dick walked back out into the darkening desert. Spyral had been looking for him all week, no doubt about it. It would be only hours before they picked him up.

 

No matter what, spyral could not know about Hafsa and her new family.


End file.
